


The Mother of All Plans

by theartofbeinganerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bus Kids - Freeform, F/M, Family Feels, Friendship, Little bit of angst, Mama May and her Ducklings, Mother's Day, Team as Family, post season five, rebuilding friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofbeinganerd/pseuds/theartofbeinganerd
Summary: When a mysterious red circle appears around Mother's Day on the communal SHIELD calendar, both Fitzsimmons and Daisy separately decide to give May a celebration for the holiday. However, it isn't long before their plans collide and they have to work together - and ultimately, figure out what their relationship is going to be like going forward.*Set post Season Five





	The Mother of All Plans

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is set sometime post Season 5, it ignores the events of Infinity War because I’m too tired for that, and it’s definitely more heavy of the Fitz/Daisy friendship than I’d intended, but at the end of the day it’s all about how much they love May.
> 
> (Also, very, very minor references to past child abuse.)
> 
> Dedicated to my Mom of all moms, who still puts up with me even when I call Melinda May my mother in front of her - love ya lots, Mom!
> 
> And a very Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

“Fitz?” Jemma calls over her shoulder, confusion coloring her tone. “Do you know who circled tomorrow on the calendar?”

“What?” Fitz gets up from his seat at the table in the Lighthouse’s commissary, crossing to stand beside Jemma in front of the communal calendar that’s hanging up beside the refrigerator. Most of the days are filled with scribbled words in different but recognizable handwritings, reminders for training sessions and team meetings. But, as Jemma had pointed out, there is a big red circle around Sunday, May 13th with no other indication as to what it means. “No. Why d’you think it was put there?”

Jemma shakes her head in response, explaining, “I’m not sure, but it wasn’t there when I checked it yesterday. And, of course there are strict rules about being clear with your notes on the calendar, so this isn’t just a mystery, it’s also improper.” There’s a beat, then she turns to face him fully with a sharp gasp, her eyes growing wide. “ _Fitz_! Tomorrow is _Mother’s Day_!”

He arches his eyebrows at that, giving a little nod. “Oh yeah, that’s right – I’ve gotta remember to call my mum.”

She gives a rather fierce roll of her eyes then. “ _No_. Fitz, don’t you understand? We should do something for May!”

A bit skeptically, Fitz asks her, “Do you really think she’d like that?”

“I think she would,” Jemma insists, nodding emphatically, “remember how surprised she was to find out that she’d raised Robin in the future? We’ve all had another tough year, and she deserves to be reminded that she most certainly can be seen as a mother.”

He still isn’t convinced, but more often than not, Jemma usually knows what’s best. And, well, he isn’t about to argue with her when she’s this excited about something. So, he agrees simply, “Alright.”

-

Daisy is on her way to the fridge in the commissary to grab a bottle of water when she happens to stop and check the calendar displayed next to it, figuring that she should check and see what’s going on with the others while she’s there. A grimace crosses her face when she notices that she’s scheduled for control center duty next Friday, but she promptly forgets about it when she notes the red circle around tomorrow’s date.

For a moment, she thinks back, trying to remember if she put it there, and if she had, what it’s supposed to remind her of.

But, when she comes up empty, she leans in and examines it a bit more closely, finding the tiny writing along the bottom of May 13th’s, square, “ _Mother’s Day_ ”.

At first, all Daisy feels is a twinge of guilt in her stomach, remembering that the most recent interaction that she had with her mother was digging up her grave in order to take a biological sample from her (and the one before that had been when she’d tried to kill her, so).

Then, however, Daisy thoughts shift to May, who had always been like a mother to her, even if she didn’t exactly fit the stereotypical “maternal” figure that she’d pictured having as a kid. She thinks of how May had said on the Zephyr in the future that she couldn’t believe that she’d been a mother to Robin, and thinks of her own disbelief at that – May has been more like a mother to her than her actual mother (and there’s that guilt again; things had actually been good between them, if only for too short of a time).

And, suddenly, she gets the ingenious idea to do something to show May just how much she appreciates all that she’s done for her (after the past year, they all deserve to be shown some appreciation, especially May).

So, Daisy leaves the commissary without even retrieving the water bottle she’d gone into it for, a handful of plans already forming in her head.

-

“Do you really think that any present we find for May down here is going to be a good one?” Fitz questions uncertainly from behind Jemma as she searches through one of the boxes in the storage room determinedly.

With her back to him, Jemma indulges into a little roll of her eyes before answering, “We’re not _finding_ her a present, Fitz.”

After she had managed to convince him of the idea of celebrating May’s place a maternal figure in both of their lives on Mother’s Day, Jemma and Fitz had started throwing out ideas of what to do to actually _celebrate_. It had been obvious to Jemma that they should give her a present of some sort, but given that their names still haven’t been cleared and they can’t leave the Lighthouse without fear of being arrested, she’d made the suggestion to head down the storage room instead.

 _But_ , not to find a pre-made present, as Fitz clearly thinks.

“ _A-ha_ ,” Jemma finally says aloud, grabbing a handful of items and turning back to face Fitz.

He glances down at what she’s collected, arching a skeptical brow. “Paper, crayons, scissors… Jemma, we may be giving her a Mother’s Day celebration, but we aren’t actually _kids_.”

“It’ll be fun, Fitz,” she insists, “and it’s the thought that counts! Wouldn’t you appreciate a handmade gift on Father’s Day?”

For a moment, he gets a bit of a far-off look, a tiny smile quirking the corners of his lips, and it absolutely warms Jemma’s heart to see (she can’t wait to see the look on his face on his first Father’s Day). Finally, he replies, “Yeah, alright, I would.”

“Oh.”

Startled, Jemma and Fitz both turn to glance at the door to the storage room, finding Daisy standing just inside it, clearly having frozen when she saw that they were already inside. There’s a moment of tense silence, then Jemma greets her, “Hello Daisy. Did you need help looking for something?”

“Ah…no,” Daisy answers, taking a couple of slow, careful steps inside the room before pausing once more, still leaving a pretty wide margin of space between them. “I was just… Well, um, it’s Mother’s Day tomorrow, and –”

“Are you doing something for May too?” Jemma asks in delighted surprise.

Daisy raises her eyebrows, her gaze immediately dropping to Jemma’s armload of art supplies. “Uh, yeah, actually. I didn’t realize…”

“We should all work together, then,” Jemma adds hopefully before Daisy can get any further, glancing between her and Fitz, who is wringing his hands together and gazing down at the floor.

Another, much longer, heavy silence spreads between the three of them, and Jemma feels her smile beginning to slip off of her face. She’s about to speak up and say never mind when Fitz clears his throat and mumbles, “Yeah.”

Just a moment longer, then Daisy murmurs, without meeting either of their eyes, “Yeah, okay, sure.” She chews her bottom lip, lacing her fingers together and taking another half-step toward them before asking, “So…you’re making her presents?”

With a relieved smile tugging at her lips, Jemma answers, “Yes, we are.”

-

They’ve been working on their separate presents for about twenty minutes, and after all Jemma’s initial attempts to start a conversation failed, silence has reigned over the common area of the Lighthouse (save for the occasional sound of Fitz sharpening his pencil, or Daisy swearing under her breath when glue sticks to her fingertips).

Finally, Jemma stands and announces, “I’ll be right back.”

With perhaps a bit more worry than he’d intended coloring his voice, Fitz asks her, “Why? Where are you going?”

Already halfway to the door, she pauses, half-turning back to inform him in exasperation, “To the loo, Fitz.”

“Oh. Okay.” He leans back in his chair, hastily dropping his eyes to his paper as he hears her footsteps retreating, leaving him and Daisy alone in the room. It feels as though the very moment that she’s gone, a thick veil of tension descends around them.

Even Daisy’s occasional swears have stopped, and in his peripheral vision, he notices that she has stopped working on her present altogether. A bit anxiously, he taps the eraser on the end of his pencil against his paper, trying to figure out something to say to relieve even just a bit of the tension between them.

But, he doesn’t want to push her, doesn’t want her to think that he believes he deserves her forgiveness (he doesn’t), or that he deserves her friendship (he doesn’t). It’s the reason that he’s kept his distance all this time, knowing that she most likely wanted space, and that she most likely _didn’t_ want him trying to fix the damage that he’d caused between them.

However, Fitz just knows that he has to say _something_ , so he lightly clears his throat and nods to her present, asking, “What…um, what’re you making?”

Daisy looks up sharply, and he winces, quickly dropping his gaze back to his own paper. She doesn’t answer at first, and he’s already accepted that she isn’t going to at all when she replies unsurely, “Um, I’m… It’s one of those dumb macaroni and popsicle stick frames.”

“Oh.” Fitz cautiously lifts his head to peer at her work more carefully, a tiny and involuntary smile quirking his lips when he realizes that Daisy’s managed to glue more pasta to her fingers than to the frame.

“We used to have to make them in school,” Daisy blurts out suddenly, “and I hated it, because…well, the nuns never really appreciated them – they got just about a couple dozen every year, after all.” With a small frown, she glares down at her project and adds, “All these years later, and I’m still not any better at it, though.”

-

Daisy doesn’t know what on earth made her say _that_ , what possessed her to admit something like that to Fitz – well, she does, actually, but she hates to admit that too.

They used to share things like that all the time, they had developed a habit over the years of exposing painful little past memories to each other, never judging the other, never offering verbal comfort, just simply _understanding_ the other’s crappy childhood in a way most people wouldn’t.

But, it seems that her mouth hasn’t quite caught up with her brain on the fact that she and Fitz don’t _have_ that kind of relationship anymore (or her heart, either, which quite suddenly aches for what they used to have before… _before_ ).

She notices Fitz hesitating out the corner of her eye, just before he scoots his chair a bit closer, leaning in to get a better look at her stupid picture frame. He reaches out, and she doesn’t miss the way that his hand trembles just slightly, to lightly trace where she’s spelled out ‘May’ in noodles. “It’s not dumb,” he says finally.

Caught completely off-guard, Daisy turns her head to look at him more fully. “What?”

“The frame, it’s not dumb,” he clarifies, dropping his gaze for a beat before glancing back up to meet her eyes. “My mum still uses hers. Says it was one of the best presents I ever gave her, ‘cause it was from the heart. So…May will love it.”

“I…” Daisy isn’t quite sure what to say to that, or how to really feel about it, so she simply replies, “Thanks.”

Fitz nods, scooting his chair back over to where he’s been working on his own project. Daisy has noticed him scribbling away ever since they’d started, but it’s only now that she really looks at what it is he’s been doing.

And, she can’t help the way that her jaw drops when she sees the beautiful hand-drawn flowers on the front of what is clearly a card for May.

She doesn’t even think it through before she cries out, “That’s not fair!”

Fitz glances up sharply, obviously startled by her outburst, and with wide, worried eyes, he asks, “What?”

It’s at that moment that Jemma returns, before Daisy has the chance to answer Fitz’s question, and she asks anxiously as she glances between Daisy’s narrowed eyes and Fitz’s concerned expression, “What’s wrong?”

By way of explanation, Daisy gestures to Fitz’s drawing. “What’s wrong is that he’s totally showing us up.”

With a frown, Jemma steps forward until she can get a good look at the drawing herself. Then, she rolls her eyes, and agrees, “ _Ugh_ , yes, you’re right. Unfortunately for us, Fitz has a bit of an artistic streak.”

“You do?” Daisy asks Fitz, arching a surprised brow. It’s something that she’d never known, in all their years of friendship, and it feels… _strange_ to learn something new about him, especially now.

“I guess,” Fitz answers with a slight shrug. “Usually save it just for blueprints and all that, though.”

“It’s a true waste,” Jemma comments as she perches back in her seat, beginning to fiddle once more with the tissue paper flowers that she’s been trying to perfect to no avail.

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees softly, shooting another little glance at Fitz, “it is.”

-

Around late afternoon the next day, after confirming that May would be busy training a couple of the newer agents for the next hour or so, Jemma, Fitz, and Daisy set to decorating the common area with what little they had.

Earlier that day, Daisy had bribed Davis into taking a trip into the town outside the Lighthouse to purchase some streamers and balloons (and to smuggle them back into the base without May noticing, which was _far_ more difficult). So, Jemma and Daisy set to blowing up the balloons while Fitz climbs up on a step ladder they’d found to hang the streamers, griping all the while about how this would be a lot easier for someone like Mack.

“It has to be from _us_ , Fitz,” Jemma reminds him, pinching the end of the balloon that she’d been blowing up to speak without letting any air escape.

“Also, the streamer you just hung is crooked,” Daisy adds.

Fitz groans, dropping his head back in exasperation, and Jemma catches the little smirk that Daisy tries to hide in response. It’s not perfect, and it’s not anything like the friendship they once had, but there’s a clear effort on both their parts to take possible, hesitant steps forward, and it’s enough to have a smile curving Jemma’s lips.

“ _Whoa_ , are we having a party?”

Surprised, Jemma glances over at the door to the room at the same time that Fitz and Daisy do, finding Deke strolling in and eyeing their decorations with a grin. “Well…sort of,” Daisy answers, shrugging a bit. “It’s for May.”

Deke frowns at that, planting his hands on his hips. “A party for May? I don’t even know her that well, and…yeah, that doesn’t sound like anything she’d like.”

“It’s Mother’s Day, Deke,” Fitz explains, gesturing him over to join him, then handing him the roll of streamers as he instructs, “Here, hang this.”

Glancing down at the streamers in his hands, then up at the work Fitz has already done, he admits, “Okay, I still don’t get it.”

“Mother’s Day is a celebration for mothers,” Jemma clarifies patiently. “Some people have parties, or give their mothers gifts like flowers or a card or something.”

“And May’s like a mother to all of us,” Daisy continues, tying off the end of another balloon and dropping it onto the floor at their feet with all of the others. “Just…don’t ever call her one to her face, alright?”

Having just finished taping up a streamer where Fitz had directed him to, Deke half-turns back to face them, saying, “ _Man_ , I never knew there was a day just for celebrating moms!” Then, the excited grin on his face fades a bit, though, and he goes on softly, “Wish I’d had the chance to celebrate with my mom; she deserved it.”

Fitz regains Deke’s attention then, handing him another streamer and gesturing for him to get back to hanging them up. A bit absently, he comments, “Well, you won’t have to wait very long for that.”

Just as Jemma registers what Fitz has just said, the room goes silent enough to hear a pin drop. Which is why the sound the air being let out of the balloon in her hands echoes through it as looks up sharply, meeting his eyes, and she sees the exact moment that he realizes it himself.

“ _Oh_ ,” he mumbles, offering her an apologetic look.

“ _You’re pregnant_?” Daisy and Deke question loudly at the same exact moment, matching wide-eyed expressions of shock on their faces as they turn to stare at her.

With an awkward little laugh, Jemma shrugs and has no choice but to admit, “Ah, well, yes.”

And, it’s only right that Daisy is the very first person to say, “Oh my… _god_. Congratulations, you guys, seriously. _Wow_.”

-

By the end of the day, May finds herself now the proud owner of a hand-drawn card with a bouquet of roses on the front (and a short but meaningful message inside that absolutely _didn’t_ make her tear up), a handful of tissue paper flowers that most likely are supposed to be sunflowers (but that will stay in a vase on her bedside table, regardless of how they look – it isn’t what matters, after all), and a frame made of purple-painted popsicle sticks and glued-on macaroni (which reads ‘to May’ and contains a picture of Fitzsimmons and Daisy, back when they all lived on the Bus together and excitement still filled their youthful faces).

And, as she finds places for them in her bunk, she hears footsteps approaching the open door. Without bothering to turn around, she comments, “Quite the party.”

“I know; I could tell by how uncomfortable you looked with all of the attention,” Coulson replies, his smile obvious in his voice. He’s quiet for a moment as she carefully situates the frame beside the flowers, then he says knowingly, “In fact, I almost couldn’t even tell that it was all your doing.”

May pauses in sitting Fitz’s card next to the frame, but only briefly. Then, she indulges in a little smirk; she should’ve known that he’d figure it out. “Oh?”

He hums in response, going quiet for another beat before he points out, “With anyone else, it would be pretty bold to assume that Fitzsimmons and Daisy would be so determined to throw you a Mother’s Day celebration that they’d work together to do it, despite everything.”

At that, May finally turns to face him, cocking her head curiously as she prompts, “But not for me?”

Coulson, where he’s leaning up against her doorframe with his arms folded over his chest, shakes his head. “Not for you.”

If she thought that she had to, she would explain to him how she had gotten so tired of seeing the three kids that are truly no longer kids avoiding each other, of seeing the distance between them when they used to be so close to one another. If she thought that she had to, she’d explain that she simply wanted them to try and maybe take some tentative steps forward, to possibly find a common ground and figure out if they wanted to start rebuilding their friendship, or if they even could – to finally leave the limbo of where they’d been for so long now behind and settle things once and for all, whichever path it took.

But, she knows she doesn’t have to – she knows that he understands more than anyone else ever could.

So, she doesn’t. Instead, she says, “This isn’t me admitting that I’m the mother of the group, you know.”

It had just been a part of a plan, after all – and just one out of a handful. In fact, she’d actually considered letting Jemma’s pregnancy ultimately bring them to this same place instead, knowing that it could possibly be the first step to healing the rift between them – if there was anything left to heal. But, she’d finally come to the conclusion that it simply couldn’t wait any longer, and had taken things into her own hands, circling the date on the calendar and letting the rest happen as it may.

A grin spreads across Coulson’s face at her words, and she allows a tiny smile of her own to slip through in response to it. “By now, I don’t think you even need to admit it for it to be true.”

May strides across the room toward the door, giving him a playful elbow to the ribs as she passes by him, teasing, “Oh yeah? Let’s see how you feel about that next month.”

After all, Father’s Day is only thirty-five days away.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr - I'm theartofbeinganerd over there as well!


End file.
